This invention relates to truck-driving. More particularly, it relates to a single and inexpensive means for solving or minimizing a serious problem of evening driving by professional, long-range truck drivers, and the like.
As compared to automobile driving, long-range truck-driving presents an arduous and strenuous task. It is characterized by long hours and distances, lack of adequate sleep, trying road conditions, and especially and frequently, inadequate visibility conditions caused by the windshield of the truck becoming littered, especially during night driving, with flying insects which accumulate rapidly and frequently. When this occurs, the driver properly feels compelled to pull over to the side of the highway to manually clear the windshield of the collected mass of insects, and to clean the same in order to obtain clear vision. At times, the necessity for such stops are frequent, especially in the mid-summer evenings. Because of their frequency, it becomes extremely difficult, and at times impossible for the driver to adhere to his schedule.
In addition to the above, truck drivers are required to make regular pre-determined stops which consume a substantial portion of their travel time. For all of the above reasons, there is a substantial need for some means for enabling truck drivers to clean the windshields of their trucks quickly and frequently in order to obviate the dangers inherent in the problems described. As a professional truck driver, I am deeply aware of this problem, of the dangers caused thereby and of the need for a simple and inexpensive solution thereof.
I have found that the practice of pulling our truck-loads into service stations and the like to rid ourselves of the above problems is inadequate because of the inadequacy of space, the lack of an adequate supply of 24-hour service, the problems of traffic, the presence of prior customers and the delays they cause, etc.
On the other hand, my experience has been that there are frequent locations along any trip at which it is convenient to pull over off the main road, for whatever reason the driver may have. At such locations there is no appreciable loss of time; only that required to remedy the problem at hand is needed. Also, there are no appreciable time delays, because of traffic, in getting back onto the road.
There is a marked scarcity of longitudinal space along the exterior of almost all trucks. I have compensated for this disadvantage by the manner in which I have designed my container and oriented same on the side surface of the truck.
I have concluded that we are compelled to solve our above problems ourselves at a self-selected location and time. As a consequence, I have conceived of a device which I have found is simple, inexpensive, and provides an adequate solution.
My invention is designed to be of the utmost convenience, and efficiency for the truck driver in effectively cleaning the truck-windshield in a minimum of time expenditure. It is comprised of a simple rectangular self-contained closed container produced preferably of light non-rusting metal such as aluminum, and having minimum dimensions suitable for receiving, storing, providing ready accessibility, and maintaining a level of windshield cleaning fluid and a squeegee having a handle, all therewithin. It is designed to have one narrow dimension so that it can be mounted on the exterior surface of the truck at a location handy to the driver as he exits from his driver""s seat, while utilizing only a minimum of the longitudinal exterior surface of the truck. The handle of the squeegee is shorter than the depth of the container so the cover seals the squeegee and handle within the compass of the closed container during travel. The vertical depth of the container is about eighteen (18) inches so that the cover can be closed with the squeegee and its handle stored therewithin, and if the cover is unintentionally left open or removed, no appreciable amount of the windshield cleaning fluid will splatter outside the container. The transverse dimension of the squeegee is about four (4) inches or less and the transverse dimension of the container at its narrower dimension is only slightly more than that of the squeegee.